Crichton Watches the Show
by Rob Rockley
Summary: What if there was a real John Crichton who watched "Crackers Don't Matter?"


My name is John Crichton. I'm not only an astronaut, I'm a rocket scientist. I'm really smart. I want to clear that up because you might go thinking I'm some kind of action hero, or uniter and leader of diverse peoples. Nope. I'm a spaceman. Sometimes I shoot people. Sometimes I take charge of a situation. Sometimes I can't find my ass with both hands because my brain's gone missing. Again. So, when my brain goes missing, that's a good time to veg out in front of my big ass TV my wife got me for Cristmas last time we were on Earth.

Now, I've really only seen one episode of what you guys call "Farscape,"(reception is crappy in space) and while I can enjoy the costumes and puppets and makeup and special effects and all that, I've really got to tell you about some of the strangest parts, because there might be some things you can't do with sets and actors and CGI.

For starters, you know Moya is awesome, but she's not just surfer "awesome." She's awesome like huge, like a space whale in the size of my home town in gold armor. That ate a chemical plant. And H.R. Geiger's hotel. And otherwise is mostly empty rooms. _Big_ empty rooms. She's not cold, though. She's warm and cozy like a summer night in a jungle, a living ecosystem. Instead of lightning bugs, there are light spiders that can follow you around. She's quiet, but you can hear her body working and if you pay attention to it, you'll just feel like napping. And you can nap for weeks because – You know what? – not a lot happens in space. Not on our scale, anyway.∞

But mostly when stuff happens, it happens pretty slow.β

Take, for example, the episode I saw, "Crackers Don't Matter." The show has us going nuts over a few days, we find out Traltixx is a jerk, we apologize and move on. In real life we were going through that star field for months. We were passing close to the middle of one of the galaxy's arms, all the while going slowly out of our freaking minds. Or, "frelling minds," if that matters to you.

Mostly we forgot Traltixx was there. He messed with the lights really slowly and we hardly noticed because nobody was working together.

We'd been in the field for a week or two, and everyone was crabby. No one was getting along. D'Argo was trying to push me around like normal, but there's something you have to know about him. He's huge. He's a giant. He's no less than sixteen frelling feet tall. (That's Moya: Built _by_ giants _for_ giants.) And D'Argo's not bilaterally symmetrical, either. He's trilaterally symmetrical. Three eyes, three top appendages, and three bottom appendages. His whole torso is one big rib bone in the shape of a thick tube with three sides. The only other bone in his body is his pyramid shaped beak.ʑ No other bones – that's why the Peacekeepers had his chains stapled through his rib bone: they'd slip off anywhere else. D'Argo was a hairy, leathernecked, sword swinging, giant biker squid from space, and you don't frell around with him.

Unless you're Aeryn. She just stared him down. Now, you have to know, she's probably two feet taller than me. Space and weird gravity stretches you out. I grew three inches taller after I left Earth. And Aeryn was born and raised in space. So, if an Amazon is a tall, hot, fighter chick from somewhere on Earth called Paradise Island, then Aeryn is an _Astro_zon, a tall, hot, fighter chick from space. Yup. I like em big. And she may be eight feet tall, but she ain't skinny. She's built like a ballet dancer, and it's like watching an artist when you see her kick some squeegee monster's head clean off. And speaking of heads, her head is really the most alien thing about her. Don't get me wrong, I think it's perfect. It's just long – really long. It's the extra brain. Sebatians' heads are big because their brains are big. I don't know why. I'm not that kind of doctor.

But that brain's not what she used when she stared down D'Argo. That was pure guts, baby. She knew she could beat his ass, and she knew _he_ knew she could beat his ass.

Well, D'Argo hadn't _consciously_ known that. He actually realized it right then, and it wrecked him for most of the rest of that trip. It almost killed him, really. Not physically, though. He was so messed up over it he almost let me kill him. And I might have done it, too, if Scorpius hadn't started talking to me. Give me a second while I smile and picture his death again.

***

So D'Argo's moping around the ship like the Chevy S-10-sized goth girl he is, and he kind of gets mixed up with me and Chiana.

D'Argo was super depressed and not thinking straight, but not particularly dumbed down by Traltixx's light. Chiana just got weird. Paranoid like the rest of us, but weird, too. She wandered around spouting surreal nonsense like some crazy windup doll. What you might not know about her is she's dead. People on her planet, the Nebarians, or Nebari, or whatever, are what you might call vampire cat people. They're furry, which is nice, and they're mostly hot and young looking, but that's just because they were killed in their prime and reanimated so they could rock on foreverΦ. I don't know if the procedure is natural or technical, but I think Chiana could be a hundred years old, or more.

So, Chiana's dead and cold to touch, and that's why I maybe sometimes liked looking at her, but, _really_, _nothing_ else. And that's why (I like to tell myself) she was never in any real trouble when I threatened her during that trip through the starfield. We three, D'Argo, Chiana, and me, had this long, drawn out, paranoid maneuvering during a lot of the trip. Who was running away in the module, who was scheming to betray the others, and who was teamed up with the others. It was complicated and sensless and I don't remember too much of it, because I also kept seeing Scorpius, or thinking I was seeing Scorpius, or worrying that I was fantasizing about Scorpius, or going nuts. (PTSD starts in episode one, if you want to know the truth.)

This whole time, Aeryn was chasing Rygel. For weeks she was on a stakeout. Hardly sleeping, watching a valve for days without moving, trying to disguise herself as part of Moya. Waiting for Rygel to ooze by, to trap him. Because she knew he was planning something. He was always planning something, and he had to be stopped.

Rygel, I gotta say, is ugly. The guy is literally a slime ball. You can see his four stomachs working. It's foul. And his brain – the size and length of a Bugs Bunny carrot. And completely devoted to eating strategies: Who will feed me? How much more will he feed me than that other? Can I coax him into giving me more? Can I get rid of him so I can have his share? What alliance has the food? Which one can get more? And maybe Rygel would have been thinking this way for that time in the starfield (because I don't think the light affected him at all), but he was keeping too busy escaping from Aeryn.

I wasn't having any fun with D'Argo and Chiana any more. It wasn't easy being paranoid about their depression and just plain craziness so I started being paranoid about Traltixx. He was nice and smart and patient with me, but full of technobabble and _boring_. It made me furious. I went to Pilot to see if he would blow the blind wiseass out the airlock or something, but all I got from Pilot was snottiness and passive aggression. I needed _real_ aggression. D'Argo wasn't up for it. Chiana just ran away. But Aeryn was ready for a fight.

So, when Aeryn and Rygel and I were all three trapped in the kitchen together (four if you count Scorpius), it started bad, and it stayed bad for a long time.

Our shootout must have lasted for weeks. Nobody could get to the door, and when anyone tried to come in, we shot at them. The Chakan oil in the pistols had a ridiculously long life. There were plenty of crackers to eat. And there was long furniture to hide behind, because the kitchen is basically a big, big cafeteria, made to feed hundreds at a time. And at first you may wonder why me and Aeryn ran out of juice in our weapons (Ah, Wynona) at the same time after such a long fight, but here's the thing – We got our Chakan oil cartridges at the same time, we'd been in all the same shootouts, and when we were shooting _at_ each other, I made _sure_ to take my turn, and so did she. Even though we couldn't aim for felgercarb.

But here's the important bit about the end of the shootout. Aeryn and I ran at each other with our empty guns. And at that point in our relationship, I believe she could have killed me, and she might _have_ in a _fair_ fight. But I had her so riled up, she forgot about Rygel. He tripped her and knocked her out with his chair.

Rygel knew if she won, she'd kill him, but if I won, I might make a deal. So he played possum until he could take her down and Rygel and I made a deal. I would tie him up and make it look like I'd got him, too, so Aeryn didn't kill him. In return, I could take credit for kicking Aeryn's ass. And I did, too, I just had a little help.

And this is why humans _are_ superior: we're lucky, and they're not.

Zhaan had spent most of this time as a big pretty tree, flowering on the observation deck. The only one who saw her was Pilot.

Pilot kept to himself for most of the trip. He knows a thing or two about cabin fever, I think. He was testy, but not too impaired. I should tell you more about him and Zhaan, but maybe I'll save it.

When I finally got everyone against Traltixx it was because I'm a paranoid xenophobic (like I said, PTSD starts in episode one), but I just happened to be right. That time.

Traltixx was weird. I wonder if he really needed the light, or if he used it like Maldis to feed on our fear and hate. I don't know. I don't really care. He's dead. Frell him.

Notes:

∞ Scale is a funny thing. A lot of the time you can't tell how far away something is. You'll be staring at a ship or a critter or a whateverthefrellitis and you'll be going towards it and you're about to touch it, but, nope, it's farther away and bigger than you thought. Or the opposite will happen. You're moving to get a closer look at something, and, pow, it smacks you in the face. It's weird, but you adjust. It makes you cautious.

β Except for emergencies, which I guess you mostly know about.

ʑ

ʑ Chiana told me once he had bones in his "tankers," but I had to stop that conversation and have a bunch of tellip nectars to drown out what I _did_ hear.

Φ Their government sucks. It's like Dracula, when it should be like The Doors. Anyway, you should see an old 80's movie called _Lifeforce_ to get an idea about how they operate.


End file.
